Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.

Saturday, 8 August 2009

Despite the show of rhetoric, Palestinians know that Fatah is in trouble having lost its fighting credibility as a force against occupation, writes Khalid Amayreh in Bethlehem

Riding in new limousines and other smart cars,hundreds of Fatah delegates on Tuesday converged on Bethlehem where the movement’s much-heralded and long-awaited sixth congress is being held amid heavy security and high hopes for revitalising a political current beset by internal divisions and a reputation for corruption.

Thousands of security personnel were deployed all over Bethlehem with the venue of the conference made inaccessible to many journalists, some of who were detained briefly for “trespassing” and “not possessing valid press credentials”.

Fatah is also facing a host of fateful crises, including a moribund peace process with Israel and an enduring rift with Hamas.

Fatah officials breathed a sigh of relief as the conference became a reality despite Hamas’s decision to bar hundreds of Gazan Fatah delegates from travelling to the West Bank. Frustrated by a manifestly vindictive crackdown by Fatah on its supporters in the West Bank, Hamas has apparently made good on its threat to prevent some 350 Fatah delegates from travelling to Bethlehem for the conference.

Israel, too, denied many Fatah leaders from abroad — and also from Gaza — entry into the West Bank, citing the “security” mantra. Hamas became even more adamant following the death on Tuesday of Kamal Abu Tiema, at a Jordanian hospital. Abu Tiema died of a massive stroke that his relatives and Hamas attribute to intensive torturing by PA security agents in Hebron more than two months ago.

The last Fatah convention was held in 1989 in Tunis under the leadership of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Speaking before some 2,200 delegates representing the movement’s followers at home and in the Diaspora, Palestinian Authority (PA) President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas said Palestinians remained committed to peace talks with Israel as long as there was hope — however tiny — for a just peace.

However, he pointed out that “resistance” remained an option for Palestinians in case peace efforts failed to end the Israeli occupation. “Although peace is our choice, we reserve the right to resistance in conformity with international law.”

This was the first time in years that Abbas invoked “resistance” against Israel. Israel views all forms of Palestinian armed resistance as acts of terror even when targeting Israeli occupation troops.

However, it is widely assumed that references to resistance by the Western-backed Palestinian leader are mainly rhetorical and intended to rally to his side reluctant Fatah delegates who believe that the effective abandonment of armed struggle against the Israeli occupation is costing Fatah dearly in terms of popularity. One Fatah delegate attending the conference commented: “it seems the president wants to satisfy everyone.”

In his lengthy address, described as dull, rhetorical and self-congratulatory by some of his opponents, Abbas lashed out at “the Hamas coup mongers” for preventing Fatah delegates from attending the Bethlehem conference, accusing the Islamic movement of “seeking to derail our national Palestinian scheme.” “The mere fact that Fatah remained steadfast despite all efforts to obliterate it is in itself a miracle. As to our brothers in Gaza, I say to them ‘You are amongst us.’”

Nonetheless, Abbas spoke of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas as being “an integral part of the Palestinian people”. “With our determination and unity with Hamas, we will transform self-rule into an independent Palestinian state.”

Abbas also lambasted those “who are commercialising the blood of Yasser Arafat”, an apparent allusion to charges made last month by Fatah’s second highest ranking man, Farouk Kaddumi, accusing Abbas and former Gaza strongman Mohamed Dahlan of conniving with Israel to poison Arafat. “This talk is embarrassing, shameful, and must stop.”

Pleasantries apart, Fatah is going to have to iron out and find “balanced solutions” for a variety of contentious issues that if untreated would inflict further setbacks on the movement. These issues include: What exactly should be Fatah’s relationship with the Palestinian Authority government in Ramallah? Should Fatah coalesce into the PA or remain distinctive and separate? Indeed, can Fatah be distinctive and separate (let alone independent) if it continues to rely for financial survival on the government of Salam Fayyad?

This week, Fatah official Nabil Amr, who is also Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) ambassador to Cairo, called on the movement to be “financially independent” from the PA government. Amr, who has been selected as the chief spokesman of the Bethlehem convention, said it was difficult for Fatah to retain its freedom to differ from — and if necessary criticise — the US-backed government of Fayyad and at the same time continue to depend on its financial generosity.

As for the peace process, Fatah is most likely going to reassert erstwhile Palestinian national constants. These include total Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, and a dignified settlement of the Palestinian refugee plight in accordance with UN Resolution 194. Such sentiments would be viewed as radical by Israel and probably the Obama administration, implying that the PA would not accept any prospective deal that would allow Israel to retain huge Jewish colonies established on occupied Palestinian territories since 1967.

Israel had repeatedly proposed a “land swap” whereby it would compensate the PA for the annexation of major Jewish settlements by granting the Palestinians a “passage path” between the West Bank and Gaza Strip and a swathe of sandy terrain in the northern Negev or near Gaza. The PA hasn’t rejected the idea out of hand, but demands that the land swapped ought to be equal in both quality and quantity.

In all events, nearly 15 years after the conclusion of the Oslo Accords, Israel continues to dominate the Palestinian scene as Jewish settlement expansion continues unabated despite US and international objections. Predictably, this is creating frustration amongst Fatah leaders at home and abroad. This week, Jerusalem Fatah leader Hatem Abdel-Qader called for “forging strategic relations” between Fatah and Iran.

“The unprecedented challenges facing the Palestinian people, and the overwhelming dangers haunting the future of Jerusalem, should prompt Fatah to formulate new relations with Iran, a country that has an important strategic weight which should be utilised politically in the service of the Palestinian cause.” Abdel-Qader hinted that Fatah’s Arab allies were being perceived as unimportant assets in the confrontation between Israel and the Palestinians.

But it is highly unlikely that the PA leadership — particularly Abbas — will give Abdel-Qader’s suggestion serious consideration since a Fatah-Iranian rapprochement, let alone alliance, would deprive the PA and Fatah of Western backing and Israel’s support, however tacit that may be. Still, the frustration harboured by many in Fatah over the “futile” and “fruitless” peace process with Israel will be strongly and directly communicated to Abbas during the present conference.

According to Hani Al-Masri, a prominent Palestinian journalist, many Fatah leaders are demanding a timeframe for the peace process with Israel. “They are extremely worried about an open-ended peace process, which would be used by Israel to expand Jewish settlements and further undermine the prospects of establishing a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank.”

Current efforts by the Obama administration to revive the so-called peace process hardly make any reference to the Arab Peace Initiative (API). Astonishingly the same applies to both the Arab states and the Palestinian side who persistently invoke the roadmap and the two-state- solution instead.

I often argued against those who blamed the failure of the API on the inadequacy of Arab efforts to market the initiative outside the Arab world, although such efforts weresometimes tried. I always believed that for those concerned, mainly the Israelis, the API was fully understood and it did not need further elaboration. Probably it was their perfect understanding of every word in it that led to its rejection rather than any assumed vagueness about its text or intention.

In our media dominated world it is barely sufficient, however, to rely on what those who are directly concerned understand. One needs to create a much larger crowd of believers in a certain project so that the members of such a crowd would be immunised against misconceptionsand distortions.

So it may be that the Israelis fully understand what the API implies, but when they ignore it and saturate the airwaves with propaganda about Arab extremism, Arab terror and the alleged Arab/Islamic threat to their existence, fewer people remember the API. The question is why the Arabs have not mounted a campaign to hold Israel accountable for rejecting the API.

No serious person can argue that the API is not extremely generous - offering Israel full normal relations, security guarantees and peace in exchange for full withdrawal from the lands it occupied in 1967. This would leave Israel in control of 78 per cent of historical Palestine.

If anything, this plan is much harsher on the Palestinians who would end up with at best 22 per cent of their historical homeland. The API was also written in such a way as to suggest that Palestinian refugees would not be granted their right to return to the homes and lands from which Israel expelled them, and that some of Israel’s illegal colonies would remain on the stolen West Bank land on which they are implanted.

All this as well as other concessions were meant not to frighten Israel, and despite all this Israel rejected the plan and continues to resist it. Why?

One of the supposedly strong paragraphs in the API calls for “Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines, as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.”

Neither this text, nor the API’s introductory paragraph, which refers to the speech of then Saudi crown prince, now King Abdullah ben Abdul Aziz, make specific mention of East Jerusalem when defining the areas from which Israel is supposed to withdraw. East Jerusalem is indeed mentioned later in paragraph 2 as the capital of the envisaged Palestinian state. But calling for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital has become such a cliché that few take it literally. The operative paragraph on withdrawal also left out an important part mentioned earlier in the introductory paragraph. The speech by Saudi King Abdullah called for “full Israeli withdrawal from all the Arab territories occupied since June 1967, in implementation of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.” That important reference to the resolutions was unduly omitted.

Despite all such discrepancies the significance of the API cannot, and should not, be undermined. The Arabs have every reason to hold on to the initiative as a moderate, pragmatic and (overly) generous offer that constitutes maximum flexibility. Instead of placing so much emphasis on the roadmap and the “two state solution,” the Arab discourse should counter demands for further concessions by stressing that the API is what the Arabs offered and the ball is entirely in Israel’s court.

The surprising phenomenon is that instead of showing more determination in pursuit of their own initiative, the Arabs tended to ignore it when the Israelis showed little or no interest. That is unusual.

There are no indications that the current American peace efforts are likely to produce any results. The Americans have, despite much persistence, lost the first and only round. Israel did not budge on the issue of stopping building settlements regardless of how trivial this issue is in comparison to others. Yet the Arabs have to shoulder the blame once more. To save face the American side had to deal with the issue of the settlement freeze not as a bilateral American-Israeli matter, but as part of a larger package. They conditioned Israeli compliance on Arab readiness for instant normalisation. This formula made it easy to press the claim that the Arab reluctance to start normalising must be blamed for Israeli rejection of the American demand of settlement freeze.

The Arabs should not allow this new American-Israeli myth to take hold, just like the last big myth that Palestinians were offered the moon at the 2000 Camp David summit and unreasonably chose to reject it.

The danger of the collapse of attempts such as the American one to force an Israeli settlement freeze is often compounded. Israel always interprets such failures as a green light to accelerate its colonisation programme.

What is happening as a result is that Israel has moved from the stage of expanding on empty land into evacuating Arab families from their homesand replacing them with Jewish settlers. This is exactly what happened last Sunday in Sheikh Jarrah in Jerusalem. Israeli policeevicted nine Palestinian families of 53 members from their homes, which were immediately made available to settlers who moved in.

If the Israeli claim that the houses were originally owned by Jews then the same rule should apply to Arab-owned property in West Jerusalem. Arab families should accordingly be allowed to evict Jewish families from their homes anywhere in Jerusalem and Palestine and reoccupy their property rightfully as well. There is nothing more simple or more straightforward.

As the casualty figures climb in Afghanistan and dip in Iraq and support for those wars plummets, the question of troop resistance remains on the table. According to US military estimates, desertion and AWOL rates have climbed since the resistance in Iraq began its armed campaign against the US occupation. In addition, recruitment numbers dropped drastically, although they have began to climb since the economy began its collapse in Fall 2008. Soldiers and Marines have been stop-lossed and their tours of duty in the combat zones were extended. In addition, many troops serve not one, but two or three consecutive tours with as little as one month stateside between tours. All of these phenomena have created increased levels of stress and depression among the troops, leading to one of the highest known suicide rates among veterans and active duty troops ever.

Many readers know at least one man or woman who has done time in Iraq or Afghanistan. Although most vets seem to adjust to civilian life once they are through with their military duty, many others do not. indeed, even those who appear to be adjusting just fine often cause concern among their friends and relatives because of changes in their behavior. The Veteran’s Administration (VA) is notoriously inept and callous in its treatment of vets, despite the best efforts of some individuals within the organization that struggle against the overwhelming bureaucratic odds and inadequate funding endemic in the agency. Newspapers run stories regularly about veterans lacking care, lashing out at family members or others, and most tragically of all, killing themselves. Yet, the Pentagon continues to push for an escalation of the war in Afghanistan while carrying on what appears to be a heated debate over whether or not to withdraw from Iraq.

Meanwhile, the US antiwar movement founders in the wake of a substantial part of its membership giving their collective soul to the Democratic Party. Since November 2008, it’s as if the bloodshed perpetrated by US policy in Iraq and Afghanistan is okay because Barack Obama is leading the charge instead of George Bush. Besides the National Assembly’s call for local and regional protests against the Iraq occupation and Afghan war in October, there has been barely a peep from other national antiwar organizations. This is despite the fact that Congress and Obama have approved several more billion dollars for the wars and the size of the US force in Afghanistan has nearly doubled while the promised withdrawal of US forces in Iraq has not even begun.

It is the opinion of many anti-warriors that veterans have a key role to play in any organized resistance. After all, it was their presence in the movement against the Vietnam war that shook the conscience of the US public in that war’s later years. However, as Dahr Jamail and his subjects point out again and again, the strength in numbers and the political power of the GI movement against the war in Vietnam was directly related to the strength of the greater antiwar movement. So, despite the commitment of today’s GI and veteran resisters profiled in Jamail’s book, The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, that commitment is limited by the weakness of the antiwar movement as a whole.

Jamail highlights the various organizations organizing GI resistance, from the Iraq Veterans Against the War to the group Courage to Resist. He also commits a chapter to each of the primary forms of resistance and reasons for that resistance. He describes instances of individual resistance and the refusal of entire units to carry out missions. He also explores the nature of the sexist culture of the military and the immorality of the wars themselves. One of the most interesting chapters in The Will to Resist is titled “Quarters of Resistance.” It describes the mission and interior of a house in Washington, DC run by a couple veterans. The purpose of the house is to operate as a sort of clearinghouse for the GI resistance movement. At times, the house has provided shelter for veterans and GIs attending antiwar activities in DC. It is also a place that the founder of the house, Geoffrey Millard, calls a “training ground for resistance.” In addition to these quarters, Jamail discusses the beginnings of a coffeehouse movement slowly developing outside major US military bases.

Jamal’s book is also about his learning to understand and appreciate the humanity of the US soldier. Originally inclined to consider them all killers without conscience, his conversations and other interactions with the young men and women who have gone to Iraq and Afghanistan to kill in America’s name have led him to understand that many of these folks struggle with their souls on a daily basis. With this growing understanding of folks who are essentially his contemporaries, The Will to Resist becomes more than just another collective biography of troops who discover their conscience under the duress of war.

If the current commander of US troops in Afghanistan has his way, there will be more than 100,000 US troops in Afghanistan by the end of the summer in 2010. Already, Barack Obama has approved adding 20,000 more active duty troops to the 1,473,900 already on duty. Without public protest, the escalation of the war in Afghanistan is certain to continue. In addition, General Odierno in Iraq insists that US troops remain in that country, as well. Furthermore, the likelihood of combat against other foes chosen by Washington increases. Resistance is never easy, as the men and women in The Will to Resist can tell us. However, if the people who poured into the streets to protest Bush’s war are truly opposed to war, then they should also make an appearance in those same streets now that the war is Obama’s.

During the 1960 Christmas season, Americans flocked to the theaters to see Exodus, a 3-1/2 hour epic featuring romance, handsome freedom fighters and the triumph of Jewish destiny over Arab evil—all set against a Yuletide backdrop of Biblical prophecy as heroic Jews returned to their promised land.

Many moviegoers failed to realize that Exodus was not fact but fiction adapted from a 1958 Leon Uris novel, the biggest bestseller since Gone with the Wind. Directed by Otto Preminger and starring a young Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint, the film featured Lee J. Cobb, Rat Pack member Peter Lawford and Italian crooner Sal Mineo, a teen heartthrob who received an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a Jewish émigré.

Then as now, Americans are easily swayed by sympathetic portrayals of an extremist enclave granted nation-state recognition by Harry Truman. A Christian-Zionist who had famously read the Bible cover-to-cover five times by age 15, Truman was a True Believer in the prophecy that the Messiah could not return until the Israelites returned to their ancestral home.

Truman White House counsel Clark Clifford routinely reminded the widely unpopular president that his 1948 campaign was woefully short of funding that the Jewish-American community—with that recognition—was eager to provide. In May 1948, General George C. Marshall, Truman’s Secretary of State, argued vigorously against recognition of this Zionist enclave as a legitimate sovereign nation. Truman heard similarly strong objections from the diplomatic corps, the fledgling Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Chiefs of Staff whose analysis of the perils proved prophetic.

Marshall, the senior U.S. military officer in WWII, was outraged that Clifford, then in charge of Truman’s campaign, would put domestic political expedience ahead of U.S. foreign policy interests. Marshall assured Truman that he would vote against him if he granted the Zionists sovereign status. He also directed State Department personnel never again to speak to Clifford.

In March 1948, a Joint Chiefs paper titled “Force Requirements for Palestine” predicted that the “Zionist strategy will seek to involve [the U.S.] in a continuously widening and deepening series of operations intended to secure maximum Jewish objectives.” Those objectives included an expansionist agenda for Greater Israel that envisioned the taking of Arab land, ensuring armed clashes in which the U.S. was destined to become embroiled.

The Joint Chiefs listed the Zionist objectives as:

• Initial Jewish sovereignty over a portion of Palestine• Acceptance by the great powers of the right to unlimited immigration• The extension of Jewish sovereignty over all of Palestine,• The expansion of “Eretz (Greater) Israel” into Transjordan and portions of Lebanon and Syria, and• The establishment of Jewish military and economic hegemony over the entire Middle East.

Akin to the fictional portrayal in Exodus, those Zionists lobbying Truman assured him they would remain within the initial boundaries. We now know that was a lie. They also promised that the Zionist state would not become what it soon became: a theocratic and racist enclave—albeit widely marketed as the “only democracy in the Middle East.” To remove all doubt as to the extremist nature of the Zionist project, the Joint Chiefs assessment added ominously:

“All stages of this program are equally sacred to the fanatical concepts of the Jewish leaders. The program is openly admitted by some leaders, and has been privately admitted to United States officials by responsible leaders of the presently dominant Jewish group--The Jewish Agency.”

Deceit from the Outset

A beguiling combination of manipulated beliefs and outright lies remain at the core of the U.S.-Israeli “special relationship.” The deceit deployed to advance the Zionist project remains obscured by a pro-Israeli bias in media and reinforced by pro-Israeli influence in popular culture.

The rewards are real for those who offer aid and comfort to this trans-generational duplicity. As Truman’s whistle-stop train traversed the nation, grateful Zionists refueled his campaign coffers with a reported $400,000 in cash ($3.5 million in current dollars). Those funds helped transform his widely anticipated loss into a clear victory with support from pro-Israeli editorial boards that—after recognition—boosted Truman’s sagging popularity.

Clark Clifford was rewarded with his career goal as a top-paid Washington lawyer. As a “made man,” he remained a reliable asset. During the G.H.W. Bush presidency, his prominence provided cover for a massive bank fraud involving the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. In 2009, Hollywood released an action thriller (The International) featuring the same storyline involving the International Bank of Business and Credit.

Neither Clifford nor Altman had experience in banking when their law firm enabled what prosecutors charged was a global criminal operation. The U.S. press called the scheme the biggest bank fraud in history. This $20 billion transnational operation even included a pop culture component. Clifford’s young protégé and law partner, Robert Altman, was married to Lynda Carter, the star of Wonder Woman, a 1970s fantasy-adventure television series.

The real fantasy in this long-running fraud lies in identifying why U.S. lawmakers continue to befriend and defend a “nation” that has for so long—and so consistently—deceived and betrayed its most loyal ally. As a badly miscast Eva Marie Saint asks in her most memorable line in Exodus: “When will it ever end?”

To restore its national security, the U.S. must shake off its entangled alliance with this extremist enclave. “Shaking off” is the literal translation of “intifada.” Those who comprehend the trans-generational nature of this deception are quickly reaching that conclusion. The others may be waiting for the movie, American Intifada.

- Jeff Gates is author of Guilt By Association, Democracy at Risk and The Ownership Solution.

"... The hostility that some Israelis feel toward Europe, she says, "is not hostile enough when one considers how hateful some European institutions are of Israel." She says she expects the members of the new body to come to European forums and "attack ferociously those who call to demonize Israel." .........

Israel also needs to "attack" EU funding for NGOs that "promotes bias and prejudice," she avers. ........

Apologetic tactics, she told Haaretz at her home in Gilo, Jerusalem, won't work. "You Israelis must have courage to say you are at war and how much it costs you," she proposed, despite the militaristic image of Israel that this may reinforce. ......

The Arabs, she observes, have no problem admitting they are at war. "I sat with a Hamas leader in Gaza not long before a helicopter took out the organization's co founder, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi," she recalls with a faint ironic smile. "I have covered Camp David to Annapolis. I know them.I know that Israel has no partner."

UK: We could remain in Afghanistan for decadesPressTVSat, 08 Aug 2009 08:26:17 GMT

Gen Richards will take over from Gen Sir Richard Dannatt as the UK's chief of the general staff.

While several polls show the majority of Britons want their troops out of Afghanistan, the incoming head of the Army says UK's mission in the country could last for up to 40 years.

General Sir David Richards, who becomes Chief of the General Staff on August 28, said Saturday that UK troops would stay in Afghanistan beyond the military phase and that the Army's role would gradually evolve into "nation-building" which could last decades.

"I believe that the UK will be committed to Afghanistan in some manner - development, governance, security sector reform - for the next 30 to 40 years", Gen Richards told Times Online.

He made it clear for the opponents of the war that there would be “absolutely no chance" of withdrawal form Afghanistan before the country's own security forces are prepared and that Britain could play some role in Afghanistan until 2050.

"Just as in Iraq, it is our route out militarily, but the Afghan people and our opponents need to know that this does not mean our abandoning the region. We made this mistake once. Our opponents are banking on us doing it again, and we must prove them wrong", the new head of the Army added.

His remarks came a day after three UK soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb explosion in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, bringing the total number of UK servicemen and women killed in the war-torn country since the 2001 US-led invasion to 195.

According to several recent polls, more than half of Britons have lost their confidence in UK's involvement in the Afghan war, urging the troops' immediate withdrawal. They say they cannot understand why the UK has invaded and occupied a sovereign country.

Members of Peace Now paid a visit to the new Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem. They are not just ’settlers’, by the slogan you will see posted on the video below you will see that they are members of Kach.

So try to figure this one out….. a Palestinian family that lived peacefully in THEIR home for generations is evicted so members of an outlawed fascist organisation can move in. What is difficult to understand is that this eviction was sanctioned by the Supreme Court of Israel, in order to appease members of what is considered an outlawed terrorist organisation. Now I’m really confused.

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Hamas on Saturday charged the security militias loyal to former PA chief Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah leader with kidnapping 42 of Hamas cadres and supporters within the past three days.

Hamas said in a statement that the campaign of arrests mainly targeted the districts of Ramallah and Al-Khalil.

It noted that among the abductees were a poet, a deputy mayor, a journalist, a member of a municipal council, teachers and others.

It said that the illegitimate government of Salam Fayyad continued its policy of sacking civil servants for sympathizing with Hamas, noting that five teachers were dismissed from their jobs in Jenin district.

ALGIERS, (PIC)-- Farouk Al-Qaddoumi, the secretary-general of Fatah's central committee, said Wednesday that the sixth conference held in Bethlehem turned Fatah from a resistance movement into a submissive political party.

In a press statement to the Algerian Echorouk newspaper, Qaddoumi warned that this conference cast doubts over the Palestinian people's rights especially the right of return, saying that he had already warned of holding the conference in the occupied Palestinian lands.

He also highlighted that the movement of Fatah outside Palestine would not recognize any decisions issued by the conference which was held in Palestinian lands under the Israeli occupation.

As for Mahmoud Abbas's intent to close his office in Tunisia, Qaddoumi affirmed that no one could close Fatah leadership's office in Tunisia because it was elected by the national council and gained the support of all Palestinian resistance factions.

Meanwhile, strong arguments and polarization flared up between Fatah leaders on the second day of the conference of Bethlehem on Wednesday.

Informed sources attending the conference reported that members of Fatah conference raged at Tayeb Abdelrahim, a member of Fatah's central committee and Abbas's aide, and forced him to leave the platform after he defiantly declared that there was no report issued by the central committee and thus Abbas's speech at the opening session could be considered an alternative report.

Abbas, who was called in to silence the conference members, threatened the attendees with expulsion if they did not show discipline and ordered his bodyguards to force out senior Fatah official Hossam Khader after his attempt to speak and interrupt Abbas.

The first session of the conference on Tuesday also witnessed verbal argument between some Fatah leaders during which Abbas's bodyguards physically assaulted former PA intelligence director Tawfiq Al-Tirawi.

Abbas's bodyguards attacked Tirawi as he was trying to help members of the conference who came from Lebanon to enter the conference room after they faced problems in getting access cards.

The first congress in 20 years of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah has been "hijacked" by an older generation, reformers said, threatening to blunt their efforts to rejuvenate the movement.

Younger members, seeking a more transparent Fatah ahead of elections due in early 2010, said on Wednesday that the "old guard" had packed the congress with delegates loyal to them in a bid to maintain the status quo.

"The Central Committee is trying to hijack the congress by imposing what they want," Mansour al-Sadi, one of the younger Fatah members seeking more power, said on the second day of the gathering in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

The meeting, which was initially due to run for three days but is likely to be extended, is the first convention that 44-year-old Fatah has held on Palestinian soil after long years of exile. The last one was in Tunis in 1989.

Fatah's former leader, the late Yasser Arafat, usually found reasons to postpone the party congress. His successor Abbas, in his opening speech, said it was "a miracle" that it was now taking place at all.

While many delegates said simply managing to get Fatah members to agree to hold the congress was enough of an achievement in itself, the younger guard was unimpressed.

"We have been demanding to hold this congress for many years but this is not the congress that we dreamt of," said Qaddoura Fares, an advocate of modernization.

REVIVAL IN DOUBT

Abbas and Fatah, locked in rivalry with Hamas Islamists who control the Gaza Strip, are the Western-backed interlocutors who would sign a peace deal with Israel, if one could be negotiated.

Washington is to launch a fresh peace plan in the coming weeks and anything that can be done to reinforce the authority and burnish the democratic credentials of the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank would be welcome.

Fatah's leadership has been heavily criticized for corruption, complacency and lack of transparency. Reformists saw the congress as an opportunity for a re-launch.

But on Wednesday, they said the "old guard" had added some 700 names to an initial list of 1,550 delegates, in what looked like a bid to pack the congress with likeminded people.

"They illegally keep adding new members. No one knows the actual numbers," said Sadi.

Abbas on Tuesday stressed that peace with Israel and establishment of a Palestinian state were Fatah's priorities, although "resistance" remained an option. He did not say what "resistance" entailed but he said it did not mean terrorism.

The group's political program is up for discussion, but its founding charter is not. That document calls for the destruction of Israel -- an apparent anachronism since Fatah has endorsed the 2003 Oslo Accords in which the Palestinian leadership recognized Israel's right to exist.

Some delegates also wanted the congress to hold to account those responsible for weakening Fatah to the point where it lost the trust of the Palestinian people at a 2006 parliamentary election won by Hamas, which seized the Gaza Strip a year later.

But it seemed this would not happen.

Instead, the main event will be the election of 18 members of the Central Committee and 120 of the Revolutionary Council -- Soviet-sounding institutions redolent of the movement's birth during the Cold War.

The aim is to give more say to a younger generation that grew up fighting Israeli occupation in the West Bank and to curb the dominance of older leaders who lived many years in exile. A vote will determine the extent of the change.

Some 80 Fatah members are running for the Central Committee and hundreds want seats on the Revolutionary Council.

"The congress is over," said delegate Jamil Tarifi, on the second morning of the convention. "The main point is that they will elect members and that's the end of the story."

"Egypt has expressed "concern" over the welcome that Saad Hariri's designation for the premiership received from Syria and the opposition, the Lebanese An Nahar daily reported Saturday.

"Egypt does not hide its preference for interim Premier Fouad Saniora to return to his position," it said.

It said that Lebanese figures who had met in Cairo with one of the most prominent Egyptian officials, also an expert on the Lebanese file, "returned with impressions implying that the chances of Saniora returning to the premiership were high."

The Egyptian official said that "despite the Doha agreement, Saniora stuck to managing the negotiations and did not offer any significant compromises in the formation of the present government."

On another note, the Lebanese figures returned to Lebanon carrying "two messages: in the first Egypt reaffirms its support for President Michel Suleiman and stresses the significance of his role. In the second, it expressed concern over the renewed Syria role in Lebanon."

By Ramzy Baroud
When seen from a distance, kites in Gaza may look quite ordinary. But while Gazan children, in many respects, are just children, their kites are hardly ordinary. Often adorned by the red, black, green and white of the Palestinian flag, Gazan children’s kites are expressions of defiance, hope and the longing for freedom.
This is hardly a cliché. People living under oppressive rules take every opportunity to express defiance, even through such symbolic ways.
Born and raised in Nuseirat Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip, I remember my first kite. It, like most kites, carried the colors of the flag. The kite was the work of my older brother, now a successful medic in the West Bank. He obliged before my incessant cries for a kite despite my father’s objections. But why should a father object to something so seemingly harmless? Simple.
A notorious Israeli military camp and detention center was stationed on the outskirts of our refugee camp, between Nuseirat and Buraij. The military camp served multiple purposes. It was to immediately dispatch troops into our refugee camp at the first sign of protest. Further, the men stationed there guarded a nearby Jewish settlement. Finally, it also served as a temporarily prison where Palestinian activists suffered torture before being hauled off to Gaza’s central prison, or worse, Al-Nakab.
The military camp however, hardly enjoyed a moment of peace. Students and other refugees from adjacent refugee camps would descend into the Israeli military grounds, almost daily with marches; carrying flags, throwing stones and demanding that the soldiers’ depart. Of course, the soldiers didn’t oblige, and my refugee camp paid a heavy price in blood with every confrontation.
In the summer, in Gaza’s scorching heat and humidity, we had two escapes, swimming in the sea and flying kites. The first option was interminably blocked by the Israeli military under various guises. During the Intifada of 1987-93, the sea fell under Israeli siege. My house was very short walk from the beach, yet somehow, we spent over seven years without visiting it once. Not once. And so kite running became the most favored pastime.
Gaza’s children don’t buy ready-made-kites. There was no such thing. They construct them by hand and with unparalleled craftsmanship. To be entirely honest, I was terrible at making kites, as I am at anything that requires manual skills. The kite maker in the family was my older brother Anwar. His skill was both impressive and troubling. The source of trouble lied in the fact that children made kites carrying the colors of the flags and other symbols of resistance at the time, such as the initials: P.L.O. They often flew them to be visible from the Israeli military camp, and if the wind was right, right on top of it. The cleverest amongst the kite runners were those who managed to drop the kite, in an unprecedented moment of sacrifice, to fall right into the military camp.
During the Uprising’s summers, there would be dozens of kites, all red, black, green and white wavering atop the Israeli military camp and temporary detention center. The soldiers would often fly into a rage, storm the camp, seeking their target: children with kites. We could determine the location of the raid when all the kites from a particular location would fall from the sky in unison.
One afternoon, I sat upon the staircase of our home in the camp, a white cinderblock home, adorned with patriotic graffiti. It was safe to fly my kite as my father was in Israel, joining tens of thousands of Palestinians who negotiated a living wage under the harshest of circumstances. Out of nowhere, Israeli jeeps leapt into the open area, separating my house from the Martyrs Graveyard. Children ran in panic. Teargas grenades were lobbed in frenzy. Kites fell all around like wounded eagles. I too ran, in circles, without letting go of my kite.
It was not bravery. Far from it. I was frightened beyond comprehension. But it took me months to finally have a kite, and when I finally had one, and an amazingly beautiful one at that, I was not ready to let go. A jeep sped towards me, as my hand trembled. “You, jackass,” a soldier yield in a loudspeaker. “Let go of the kite.” And so I did. When I was asked why I was crying, many hours later, I told my brothers that my eyes were still irritated from the tear gas. But that was a lie.
It was because of this bittersweet memory, perhaps, that the news reports of Gaza’s children aiming for the world record on the number of kites flown stimulatingly in the same place, captured my attention. John Ging, the director of operations for the UN Relief and Works Agency assured reporters that the 5,000 children who gathered by the beach in northern Gaza, on July 30, have indeed broken the record. The previous record was set in Germany in 2008, and if the new feat is verified by Guinness, Gaza’s kids will have taken the lead with “flying colors”.
UN officials in Gaza, media reporters and others saw the kite flying event as an expression of innocence in a time when Gaza lives its harshest periods yet: suffocating siege, massacres, and collective humiliation. But the message was, of course, neither about kites, nor about world records. It was about the children of Gaza, in fact, Gaza itself, that tiny, subjugated, yet ever resilient, defiant, proud and somehow still hopeful place.
As for me, I never knew of the whereabouts of my old kite when I so reluctantly let it go. I was comforted by the thought that it might have fallen into the detention center, but I was never sure. It was my first kite ever, and I never asked for another one despite my older brother’s repeated offers.- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net).

Habila's Son Memorizes the Qur'an in Just 35 Days! Who Needs Liberation and Siege Breaking? Keep Those Guinness Records Coming! As They Used to Say, "Revolution" Until Victory!# posted by Tony : 9:29 AM

For me Kenafah is symbol for wealth and corruption (WESTERN AID). A call for more Kenafah to spoil Palestinians and forget their rights.

The alarming part is that thousands of youngsters are enrolled in special camps for the purpose of MEMORIZING the Qur'an; Instead of lively debates, critique and analysis, revolutionary theory and practice, etc, this is what Hamas has produced.

Comming into contact with a religious man they always feel they must wash their hands.

The problem with political Islam is the fact that it is political!!

As Arab minorities (to their own right) prefer a pseudo secular dictatorships than a democratically elected Muslim party.

The masses are so brain washed and religion is thought of as the spinal chord of their identity.

To them the reformation will not be possible until political Islam fails completely against Israel same way Arab nationalism failed in 1967. Only then will the masses lose faith in it , same way the lost faith with Nasser and Baathism.

For things to get better , they must get a whole lot worse (to them it means the liquidation of the Palestinian struggle and the full hegemony of the west over historic Palestine with the Arab regimes blessing Zion. ).

In their life time they will not see the changes , because we are in the midst of the Islamic Dark ages.

Friday, 7 August 2009

This Article, refects the author's concern on Human rights in Gaza. I agree with Dr. Adel Samara, "Such decisions, is an ideal gift for bankrupted defeated groups collaboring with the ememy agaist resistance, who shall use it to turn people against resitance. Is that what Hamas wants? I hope no."

Like,Dr. Adel Samara, I am a born Moslem. I started my political life as a nationalist in Arab nathionalist movement passed by PFLP, and moved with hawatmi to DFLP, In 1982 I decided to get out the box, and think with my own mind, see with my own eyes.

A book, ( The book and Quran, a medern reading) I read in early 90's trigered a great need to know ISLAM, and to read Quran for the first time in my life.

I read tens of books, my intensive reading made me understand why Islam is under attack not only by the enimies of Islam, but by people claimg to be muslims just because they were born to Muslim parent. They are the victims of Talban version the goes back beyond Ibn abdulwahab to Ibn Taymeya, and back to Ibn Hanbal.

They failed to see the thin thread seperating Islam (I mean by Islam the Holly text -Quran only) and the human understanding of the Holly text, between Islam and the History of Islam. Quran is Holly, it's Human understanding (Tafseer) is not.Quaran is Holly the History of Islam is not.

Those who killed Othman where commrads (sahaba) of our Prophet PUH.And those who fought Ali in Jammal battle wre lead by Aysha and Sahaba, Talhah and Zubair. Their disagreement was not about relgion, but about power.That disagreement started before the funeral of our Profit, and turned into a revolution (Ulama call it fitna" against Othman, that plitted Muslims till this very day.

I never felt, any contardiction between bein a Palestinian by birtn, an arob by nationality, a leftist by idiology, and a moslem by religion,

Pharoah, Quroun and Haman mentioned in Quran are not Just names they are symbols what we call now, the alliance of Political power, (Pharoah), financial power (Qaroun) and Media (Haman), Religion, all religions, were in fact revolution against that alliance.

Prophets, all Prophet, were the first freedom fighter in human history. I would say the first "Suicide bombers" , because their mission was by all means suicidal.Qyran call jews as Prophet killers.

My message to Hamas:

Human freedom is the first pillar in the Islam I believe in.

18:29And say: “The truth is from your Lord, so let whoever desires believe, and whoever desires reject.” We have prepared for the wicked a Fire whose walls will be surrounding them. And if they cry out, they are given a water like boiling oil which burns their faces. What a miserable place!

However, absolute freedom belongs to God only, and He has given this power to us in various degrees according to our human abilities. we has been given limited freedom. The Quran affirms the fundamental rights that we possess. These rights are so deeply rooted in our humanness that denying or violating them has nothing to do with Islam. "A large part of Quran is focused on freeing human beings from the bondage of traditionalism, authoritarianism (religious, political, economic), tribalism, racism, sexism, slavery, or anything else that prohibits or inhibits human beings from actualizing the Quranic vision of human destiny."

Socially and politically freedom is not complete or absolute. No society or State can give absolute freedom to anybody in order to secure harmony and mutual respect of all the citizens.

Equality of human beings, men and women is the second Pillar.

"0 Mankind ! we created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other." (49, 13).

Islam does not accept the Christian notion of original sin, as a punishment for which man was exiled from Heaven.

Then they twain ate thereof , so that their shame became apparent unto them , and they began to hide by heaping on themselves some of the leaves of the Garden . And Adam disobeyed his Lord , so went astray .

Adel Samara is PhD in political economy and development, University of Exeter, England. Writer and Communist Political and Class activist. He has been arrested by Jordan, Israel, and the PA. He is a journalist of the newspaper AlarabOnline. He is also director of the Eastern Center for Cultural Studies.

Irving Moskowitz has come a long way since he began his medical career as an young internist in California 60 years ago. Shortly after earning his medical degree in 1952, he bought his first hospital. This transaction turned into a lucrative business of buying and selling hospitals, which earned him his first fortune.

As early as 1969, he began to turn his attention from hospitals to real estate of a different sort: holy real estate. He began to buy property for yeshivot in East Jerusalem. But he was running out of hospitals to sell and needed a new source of income to fund his dreams.

In 1972, he opened the first hospital in the small southern California town of Hawaiian Gardens and became a local hero. So in 1988, when the town faced the loss of $200,000 in revenue from the local bingo parlour, they turned to the orthodox Jewish doctor to take over the operation. The town agreed to accept 1% of gross receipts, and Moskowitz kept the rest – tens of millions of dollars. He never looked back, and his second fortune was guaranteed.

California law required that bingo be conducted by a non-profit organisation. So he shrewdly incorporated the Moskowitz Foundation, enabling his profits to be transferred directly to Israeli projects and largely avoid US taxes.

Over time, Moskowitz and other supporters of a far-right settler agenda developed a vision of "Judaising" East Jerusalem and its environs. They began after the 1967 war with a goal of repopulating formerly Jewish neighbourhoods, whose inhabitants had been expelled in 1948. The vision has gradually become more ambitious, seeking to dislodge Arab inhabitants from their traditional homes in villages like Silwan in order to transform Jerusalem into an exclusively Jewish city that can never be divided or shared with the Palestinians. Rabbi Haim Beliak, a pre-eminent Jewish activist and opponent of Moskowitz, goes so far as to call this "ethnic cleansing" of the indigenous population. Moskowitz's goal is to impose, through demography and population transfer, a political agenda on the state.

In 1985, Moskowitz purchased a political and real estate crown jewel: the Shepherd Hotel, for which he paid $1m. The property had been the headquarters of the Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, a leader of Jerusalem Palestinians in the 1940s, who allied himself with the Nazis during the second world war. The state took control of the property decades ago and then sold it to Moskowitz. In one stroke, Moskowitz wrested from Palestinians part of their historic legacy and enabled the settler movement to make inroads into a new Arab neighbourhood.

Moskowitz plans to raze the hotel and construct residential units for like-minded ideological settlers. But for years, no Israeli government or municipal administration would to give him permission to build on the site. They understood the tinder-box nature of Moskowitz's proposal, remembering his last foray into sacred real estate: the Hasmonean Tunnel, a major Jewish excavation under the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem – the opening of which in 1996 led to violence that left 85 Palestinians and 16 Israelis dead.

The current rightist Israeli government and new nationalist mayor of Jerusalem are prepared to throw caution to the wind and push the Shepherd Hotel project through, however. Last month, the city of Jerusalem approved Moskowitz plans.

Netanyahu's reply was bull-headed and typically disingenuous. There would be no limits on Jewish construction in " & hotel>

Bibi neglected to mention that no one in the world recognises Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem. Thus we're not talking about Jews being prevented from living in New York. Rather, we're talking about a hypothetical New York divided between two nations which are in a state of hostility. Naturally, one of the nations might want to regulate the settlement of citizens from the other in its neighbourhoods.

Based on a review of his foundation's tax forms, Moskowitz has sunk at least $70m as of 2002 into various settlement projects (not including his own personal fortune, which could add millions more). Besides him, there are a number of other American Jewish pro-settler groups raising millions of dollars for similar projects.

One of Moskowitz's favourite charities, to which he has given at least $5m, is American Friends of Ateret Cohanim, which runs a prominent East Jerusalem yeshiva. More importantly, its mission calls for rebuilding the Holy Temple and re-instituting animal sacrifices from the time of King David. The yeshiva trains those who would become priests if such a temple were ever built. If any of this came to fruition, it would likely ignite a holy war between Jews and Muslims.

I have urged the IRS to revoke the non-profit status of these entities. By granting tax-exempt status to the groups and their donations, the US taxpayer becomes an indirect subsidiser of the occupation. Denying non-profit status would strike a major blow against the American Jewish funding pipeline, which advances the most noxious projects of the extremist settler movement.

Given that Moskowitz is a political ally of Netanyahu, the Obama administration may have deliberately chosen a showdown over the Shepherd Hotel, since it knows very few American Jews (let alone Americans in general) will have any sympathy for such a provocative project to destroy a Palestinian historic landmark.

The following official governmental statistics, up to December 2008, show the disastrous conditions prevalent in Iraq since the American invasion and occupation of that country.

1. One million widowed Iraqi women (according to Iraqi Ministry of Women Affairs).

2. Four million orphaned Iraqi children (according to estimates by the Iraqi Ministry of Planning).

3. Two and a half million (2,500,000) Iraqis killed (according to the Iraqi Ministry of Health and Forensic Medicine).

4. 800,000 Iraqis have disappeared in secret holding places connected with the different ruling parties (according to registered complaints at the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior).

5. 340,000 Iraqi prisoners, detained without charge, in U.S. army prisons, the prisons of the Iraqi government, and the prisons in the Kurdistan District (according to Iraqi, Arab, international and UN human rights organizations and agencies). US occupying forces admit officially that the number of Iraqi detainees in their prisons is about 120,000.

6. Four and a half million (4,500,000) Iraqis are refugees outside Iraq (according to statistics of those seeking passports (category C) from the General Directorate of Passports.

7. Two and a half million (2,500,000) Iraqis are refugees inside Iraq (according to the Iraqi Ministry of Refugees).

8. 76,000 registered Iraqi cases of AIDS; this number did not exceed 114 cases before the invasion and occupation of Iraq (according to the Iraqi Ministry of Health).

9. Frightening spread of the use of addictive drugs imported from Iran, among youth (according to the Iraqi Ministry of Health and the Center for Combating Drugs and Addictions). I have written a series of well-researched articles about the various methods used to smuggle drugs, some of which are highly toxic, and how they are collected in different storage places in the southern districts, under the total control of some of the parties and the militias participating in the government, and how the profits from these drugs are used to buy (pay off) government officials, in order to gain their support and silence, and to finance their election campaigns.

10. Three out of every four marriages end up in divorce since the invasion and occupation of Iraq (according to Iraqi Ministry of Health).

11. More than 40% of the Iraqi people are under the poverty line (according to the Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights). I believe, however, that the actual percentage is much higher, and surpasses 55%.

12. Decline in the level and quality of basic and tertiary education, according to statements made by officials in UNESCO, which led this organization to refuse to recognize university degrees issued by Iraqi tertiary institutions (universities and colleges).

13. Tens of thousands of forged university degrees are granted to high government officials, high ranking officers, directors generals, and senior officials of political parties (according to statements and statistics from the Iraqi Honesty and Transparency Commission).

14. There exist about 550 political bodies and party coalitions (according to the Iraqi Independent Public Elections Commission), and, as of today, there is no law regulating this large number of political bodies.

15. There exist about 11,400 civil society organizations (according to the Iraqi ministries of the Interior, Justice and Social Welfare). These organizations have public and secret objectives, and it is not clear what these are, and how they are financed.

16. There are 126 security companies controlled by foreign secret service agencies, and registered at the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior. The declared objective of these companies is to protect foreign embassies, foreign diplomats, and visiting VIPs. However, their hidden objectives are unknown. In this case, what is the value of having today one million persons under arms in Iraq, distributed among the Ministries of Defense, the Interior, the various governmental security agencies, in addition to the security agencies of the various ruling parties.

18. There are 220 newspapers and media publications financed by foreign secret service agencies (according to Iraqi Journalist Union). The specific objectives of these publications is to do brainwashing of Iraqis, to remove their thinking about the various projects aiming at fragmenting Iraq into sectarian, regional, and ethnic mini-states, and to destroy their national identity.

19. There are 45 TV channels financed by foreign secret service agencies (according to statements by the Management of Nilesat and Arabsat satellite service providers).

20. There are 67 radio stations financed by foreign secret service agencies (according to statements by the Iraqi Information Commission).

21. There are 4 networks of digital communications, the estimated value of each is 12 billion dollars, financed in favor of party leaders. Among which are the following companies:

· Kork Company owned exclusively by Mas’aoud Barazani (the President of the Kurdistan District);

· Assia Company owned exclusively by Jalal Talbani (the President of Iraq);

· Zein Company (Kuwaiti), 50% is owned by Ahmad Jalabi and the Islamic Da’wah Party;

· Atheer Company owned exclusively by Abdel Aziz al-Hakim.

22. There are more than 11,400 official and unofficial party headquarters. These could be the offices of fake contracting company, or an NGO, or a political group. However, these headquarters in reality are public premises for the Iraqi government that were taken over from their legitimate owners after they were eliminated, or forced to vacate and seek refuge somewhere else. All are paid for from the Iraqi national budget.

This is only the tip of the iceberg of what’s happening in “their new democratic Iraq”, since the American invasion and occupation of the country.